So I just attempted to get some personal information from the IRS and was brought back into this ID.me verification. I had already verified with them last year so I figured it would be as easy as...
So I just attempted to get some personal information from the IRS and was brought back into this ID.me verification. I had already verified with them last year so I figured it would be as easy as just logging in again.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
It asked me for my SSN. It asked me for copies of my Driver's license - twice, front and back. It asked me for multiple selfies. It asked me for a phone number so it could cross-reference with the phone companies. And then it said that wasn't good enough so I gave it another phone number. I even gave them a photo of my passport, and that still wasn't enough. Right now they want to have a video conference with me, but the current waitlist is nearly two hours long. And given that it's 11PM right now, there's no way I'm going to wait to do that right now.
US citizens may want to file their taxes early this year.
So I tried to get this video conference thing done last night. I logged back into the thing after dinner, just before 7 PM. It said I would be waiting 2 hours and 10 minutes. I thought to myself I could wait and do other things while waiting. But every time I checked back on it the time would grow longer. In the end it actually took 4 hours, connecting a few minutes after 11 PM.
The actual video conference took maybe all of two minutes, where I put my passport and ID up to the camera again and also took off my glasses for one more photo.
The thing that pisses me off is that you really had to baby this thing. You couldn’t close the window or you would lose your place in line. I honestly wonder if I wasn’t losing spaces just by switching to a different window. And sometime after they estimate a 20 minute wait they will send you a dreaded “are you there” button you have to press so you can’t keep it too far out of mind either. Why on earth can’t I set an appointment if they know I will be waiting multiple hours for this?
“ID.me is supplying something many governments ask for and require companies to do,” says Elizabeth Goodman, who previously worked on Login.gov and is now senior director of design at federal contractor A1M Solutions. Countries including the UK, New Zealand, and Denmark use similar processes to ID.me’s to establish digital identities used to access government services. Many international security standards are broadly in line with those of the US, written by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Goodman says that such programs need to provide offline options such as visiting a post office for people unable or unwilling to use phone apps or internet services. Making any digital service universally accessible in a large and varied nation like the US is a challenge. An agency like the IRS has to serve a user base similar in scale to that of a large tech company, but unlike a hot startup must also include society’s least connected. “Usable security is really, really hard,” Goodman says. The US government’s track record on digital inclusion is mixed. ID.me says it has 650 locations where people can complete enrollment in person—a small number in a big country.
[...]
ID.me was well positioned to take advantage of the new standards, which federal agencies must comply with. The company was founded in 2010 as a deals website for veterans and active military and developed a system for checking military IDs used by the Department of Veterans Affairs. It won millions of dollars in federal grants to explore new approaches to digital identity that helped inform the 2017 standards and became the first company accredited as compliant with them. In 2019, ID.me signed a contract with the VA that has so far paid out more than $30 million.
During the pandemic ID.me has won a surge of new business—and scrutiny. States hired ID.me to screen claims for Covid-19 aid that overwhelmed many employment departments. But nonprofits and lawmakers have complained about its use of face recognition and said some vulnerable citizens can’t get through the company’s checks. California’s Employment Development Department said that ID.me blocked more than 350,000 fraudulent claims in the last three months of 2020. But the state auditor said an estimated 20 percent of legitimate claimants were unable to verify their identities with ID.me.
[...]
In an interview this week, ID.me CEO Blake Hall claimed that his company in fact widens access because its remote ID checking works for people without credit histories who often fail conventional checks. He claimed many problems with access to pandemic aid were caused by state agencies failing to provide adequate in-person services and that ID.me’s in-person locations provide a backstop.
There's criticism in the article (which I didn't quote) saying that governments aren't ready so they should delay this. I think it's true that they weren't ready, but the pandemic and rising fraud...
There's criticism in the article (which I didn't quote) saying that governments aren't ready so they should delay this. I think it's true that they weren't ready, but the pandemic and rising fraud forced their hand.
It seems similar to how schools suddenly discovered that they had to do remote learning when many students didn't have decent Internet access. Many companies probably weren't ready for remote work either?
When an organization isn't ready to do it right and they have to do it anyway, muddling through is what you get. Sometimes third-party contractors step in with solutions to get people out of a jam, and if there isn't a great alternative then that's what they'll go with.
So I just attempted to get some personal information from the IRS and was brought back into this ID.me verification. I had already verified with them last year so I figured it would be as easy as just logging in again.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
It asked me for my SSN. It asked me for copies of my Driver's license - twice, front and back. It asked me for multiple selfies. It asked me for a phone number so it could cross-reference with the phone companies. And then it said that wasn't good enough so I gave it another phone number. I even gave them a photo of my passport, and that still wasn't enough. Right now they want to have a video conference with me, but the current waitlist is nearly two hours long. And given that it's 11PM right now, there's no way I'm going to wait to do that right now.
US citizens may want to file their taxes early this year.
So I tried to get this video conference thing done last night. I logged back into the thing after dinner, just before 7 PM. It said I would be waiting 2 hours and 10 minutes. I thought to myself I could wait and do other things while waiting. But every time I checked back on it the time would grow longer. In the end it actually took 4 hours, connecting a few minutes after 11 PM.
The actual video conference took maybe all of two minutes, where I put my passport and ID up to the camera again and also took off my glasses for one more photo.
The thing that pisses me off is that you really had to baby this thing. You couldn’t close the window or you would lose your place in line. I honestly wonder if I wasn’t losing spaces just by switching to a different window. And sometime after they estimate a 20 minute wait they will send you a dreaded “are you there” button you have to press so you can’t keep it too far out of mind either. Why on earth can’t I set an appointment if they know I will be waiting multiple hours for this?
Here is some followup on a previous article:
[...]
[...]
There's criticism in the article (which I didn't quote) saying that governments aren't ready so they should delay this. I think it's true that they weren't ready, but the pandemic and rising fraud forced their hand.
It seems similar to how schools suddenly discovered that they had to do remote learning when many students didn't have decent Internet access. Many companies probably weren't ready for remote work either?
When an organization isn't ready to do it right and they have to do it anyway, muddling through is what you get. Sometimes third-party contractors step in with solutions to get people out of a jam, and if there isn't a great alternative then that's what they'll go with.
It probably doesn't help that the IRS is underfunded and overwhelmed.